Irish ice cream company Gino’s Gelato to be 100 percent sustainable by next year

They're also working on adding more vegan and gluten free options.

Gino's Gelato are working on becoming 100 percent sustainable by next year. The Irish family-owned ice cream company have already swapped 90 percent of their packaging - including spoons, tubs, cups, and waffle and crepe containers - for sustainable biodegradable alternatives. Gino's founders Jonathan Kirwan and Anthony Murphy said that they opted to make the change to curb the amount of plastic waste that ends up in our oceans every year. "Our consumers are very aware of the impact that modern business has on our environment, and they expect better from us," they said. "We can already see that moving to sustainable packaging has been a positive change in our business (...) our packaging costs have remained generally the same." The company are also hoping to do more to appeal to their customers with more specific dietary requirements - especially those looking for more vegan and gluten free options. As it stands, Gino's already offer eight non-dairy sorbet flavours including mango and passionfruit. They also introduced their first vegan chocolate gelato last year - a flavour that also happens to be gluten free. "Often vegan or alternative dairy products lack the creamy delicious taste that we expect," says Kirwan and Murphy. "We refuse to compromise on taste, our dairy-free customers deserve the best we can offer. "We hope that this is the first of many dairy-free flavours we can introduce, we are always experimenting and innovating with our suppliers!" According to the guys, creating new vegan and gluten free flavours is relatively easy. Once the flavour is introduced into stores, staff are then trained on how to avoid cross contamination between each gelato. This is particularly important for customers with allergies. On the dairy side of things, Gino's source their milk from a small Dairy in Carlow. All of the milk is organic and comes from a handful of Irish family farms - so its founders (and customers) known exactly where it's coming from. "Happy staff, happy cows, happy customers, saving the planet each day," says Kirwan.